Russian leader Vladimir Putin is likely to lecture US President Donald Trump on the Russian version of Ukrainian history in a bid to justify his invasion, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation on Thursday.
The center, which is a government agency tasked with countering Russian propaganda and disinformation in Ukraine, said the information came from
the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
In its Thursday update, the center stated that Putin is preparing so-called “historical materials” for the US president to justify the Kremlin’s position that Ukraine is a so-called “artificial state” that should not exist.
“These are geographical maps that, according to Putin’s plan, are supposed to prove to Trump that Ukraine is an ‘artificial state’ formed at the expense of the territories of other countries,” the update says.
“This is supposed to justify the Kremlin’s military aggression against Ukraine and the Russian Federation’s claims to Ukrainian territories.”
The center noted that Putin has had a history of using “pseudo-historical speculation” to justify border encroachments on other nations.
Trump and Putin are set to meet on Friday in Alaska to discuss the war in Ukraine – the first meeting between the US and Russian heads of state after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
While Trump previously floated the idea of “swapping” Ukrainian territory with Russia during Friday’s talks, he later downplayed it, describing the meeting as a preliminary discussion aimed at securing a ceasefire – something he has yet to achieve despite months of calls with Putin.
Putin has long emphasized historical ties between Ukraine and Russia, publishing an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” just months before the full-scale invasion as a means to justify the war.
In it, he described Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians as “one people” and claimed that Ukraine’s current government resulted from a “coup” that ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, discrediting the Revolution of Dignity and ignoring subsequent democratic elections. He also advanced a version of Eastern European history many Ukrainians reject as revisionism, exaggerating Moscow’s claim on Kyivan Rus, the medieval kingdom centered in modern-day Kyiv.
The stance is also reflected in his speech the day he launched the 2022 invasion.
Putin’s obsession with history is also presumably why he sent a historian to lead direct negotiations with Kyiv in 2025 in his place despite initiating the talks himself.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation pointed out the key flaw in Putin’s argument, as it would simply allow any historical empires to lay claim to other modern, sovereign territories – including Russia itself.
Swathes of modern Russian lands were once part of other nations – such as the Sakhalin Islands, which were Japanese, or the exclave of Kaliningrad, formerly known as Königsberg under German rule.
“Most modern countries or parts of them were once part of other states. This also applies to the current Russian Federation, which was once part of the Golden Horde, and many of the current territories of the Russian Federation in the past belonged to other states – Germany, Sweden, Finland, etc,” the center wrote.
Based on Putin’s logic, Alaska should be Russian, and bits of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado would all be French.